Today we left for O’Hare around 9 am. We are heading New Jersey/NYC to visit family and go to Miguel and Tracy’s wedding. The parking was full again at O’Hare so we got lucky and got to park in the close garage again.

It was my first time using my TSA precheck and it was amazing, not having to take anything out of your bag or take off shoes is a game changer.

We had a nice window seat at our gate and got some McDonald’s for lunch. Lucas really enjoyed watching our plane get ready. He waved at the workers outside and some of them even saw him and waved back!

We did get a little surprise when we opened the stroller bag and prepared it for going through security—the combine from the movie Cars. We had given it to Lucas as a gift on our last flight last Labor Day and we hadn’t been able to find it since. He would ask about it from time to time and we would just say we think we left it at the airport, but turns out it had been in the stroller bag this whole time! Lucas was happy.

Surprisingly, Lucas did not sleep at all on the flight. It was weird because it was nap time. I think it was because we let him sit by the window and he couldn’t get comfortable. He was good though, he watched Cars, colored, and read books. He enjoyed the apple juice and cookies provided by American Airlines.

We arrived at the new terminal in LaGuardia. It was very nice, super impressive. They had this really cool fountain. It was mesmerizing and Lucas did not want to leave it. We took our shuttle to Hertz. Then we made the mistake of loading the car seat into a Chevy Equinox before adequately checking the trunk space—it’s non-existent. So then we switched to a Ford Escape. It feels old and everything on the dashboard is annoyingly placed but it got the job done.

Lucas slept all the way from LGA to Pearl River. We are staying the first 3 nights with Khris and Jess. Before going to their place, we picked up a few things from the grocery store.

When we got to Khris and Jess’s house, Lucas wanted to play outside immediately. We went to the yard and Lucas got a kick out of Khris showing him how to pick up sticks. Khris made an excellent dinner of steak, chicken, sausage, broccoli, Mac and Cheese, and mini corn dogs. Lucas ate pretty good and Jess gave him an Easter Pez Dispenser. He was really excited about it and wanted to try it out. I forgot how terrible Pez smelled, like medicine. But Lucas enjoyed it.

After dinner Khris made a fire and we roasted marshmallows. Lucas had fun gathering sticks for the fire. He said a few times, “I can’t believe we are here at night making a fire.” I think he had a lot of fun.

It took a lot for Lucas to calm down for bed. We are using his travel air mattress for the first time. He finally fell asleep around 10.